It seems it was important to people of Science back in St. Basil's day. Regardless of the grave problems of Science, this topic does not need to be debated as if it has Religious significance. After all, as long as one has God as the base and power behind all, what does it matter? God could have made the Earth flat just as He could have made it round. What's the difference as long as one believes He made it and sent His Son to Redeem mankind on it.
So long as one has God as the Creator, what makes the shape so important?
‘God, our Creator and lord, can be known with certainty, by the natural light of reason from created things.’ (De fide.)
In the light of today's technology, astronomy and geodesy (the branch of mathematics dealing with the shape and area of the earth or large portions of it), the earth is now known to be a globe. Ancient thinking, and that includes some of the Fathers, assumed it was flat because to every human on earth it is flat under them and the sky is above them. But, as described in Domenico Cassini's book: THE ORIGIN AND THE PROGRESS OF ASTRONOMY AND ITS USE IN GEOGRAPHY AND FOR NAVIGATION 1693, in time, science determined the shape of the earth.
HERE ARE A FEW CHAPTERSBut when at last Thales brought from Phoenicia to Greece the science of the stars, he taught the Greeks to recognise the constellation of the lesser Bear, and how to use it for conducting navigation. He also taught them the theory of the movement of the Sun and the Moon, by which were explained the increasing and decreasing of days, determined the number of days of the solar year and not only explained the causes of eclipses but showed the art of predicting them, which he even put into practice, predicting an eclipse which occurred shortly after. The merit of such knowledge, so rare at the time, gave him the reputation of oracle of his days, and assigned him first rank among the seven Sages of Greece. He had for a disciple Anaximander, whom Pliny and Diogneus credit with the invention of the sphere, that is, representing the earthly Globe, or as Strabon says, geographical maps. It is said that Anaximander also built at Lacedemonia a gnomon or pin of a dial, by which he observed the Equinoxes and Solstices, and that he determined the slant of the ecliptic more precisely than had been up to then; which was necessary in order to divide the Globe of the Earth into five zones, and to distinguish the climates that since have been used by geographers to make known the situation of all the places on earth....
Just about the same time that the compass began to be used, the Caliphs example spurred on the princes of Europe to provide for the advancement of astronomy. Emperor Frederic II (1194-1250), unable to stomach that Christians should have less knowledge of this science than the infidel, had translated from Arabic into Latin the infidel’s ‘Almagest’ of Ptolemy. John of Sacrobosco, professor of the University of Paris drew from it when composing his work on the sphere, on which the ablest mathematicians of Europe have made commentaries....
'This work aroused the curiosity of the experts of Europe: they straightaway invented various sorts of instruments to facilitate the observation of the stars; they calculated the Ephémérides, and made tables to discover at all times the slant of the planets, which was connected to the observation of the meridian heights, used to find the latitudes by land and by sea, they also worked at calculating eclipses, by the observation of which are found longitudes. Never had there been more chance of succeeding in navigation: and pilots took advantage of it. With the help of these benefits they crossed unknown seas; and the success of these maiden voyages encouraged them to attempt fresh discoveries. All the peoples of Europe went at it with a will. The French were the first to show their courage and their skill: they occupied the Canaries, and they penetrated far into Guinea. The Portuguese took the Isle of Madeira and that of Cape Verde: and the Flemish discovered the Isles of the Azores...
'These discoveries were only the prelude to that of the New World. Christopher Columbus basing himself on the knowledge he had of astronomy, and on (22) what was said of the memories of a Basque pilot cast by storm upon an island of the Atlantic Ocean, undertook to cross this sea. He disclosed the proposition to various princes of Europe, of whom some neglected to take it up, because of other business more pressing: the others refused because they understood neither the importance of this expedition nor the reasons given by Columbus to suggest the feasibility. Thus the glory of the discovery of the New World was left to the King of Castille who since have derived from it immense wealth, which inspired in them plans for a universal monarchy, and put them in fair bidding position to rival the power and grandeur of France.....
'Columbus was well aware by the knowledge he had of the sphere and of geography, that sailing always towards the west always about the same parallel, he could not fail to discover lands, because if there were no new ones, necessarily with the earth being round as it is, he would reach by the shortest route the East Indies. In the travels he had made from Lisbon to Guinea going from the north toward the south, he had proven that a degree of the circuмference of the Earth contains fifty-six miles and two thirds, in agreement with the measurement determined by the astronomers of Almamon; as he had learned in the books of Ptolemy that going straight west, there were not more than one hundred eighty degrees from the Canaries up to the first lands of Asia. He then left the Canaries holding steady the front of his ships to the west and along the same parallel; and as he did not completely trust the compass, he took care always to observe the position of the Sun by day, and of the fixed stars by night. This precaution kept him from straying: for those who have written his biography, say that (23) the observations of the sky made him see with his telescope a variant that was unknown to him, and also helped him to realign himself unto the night course....'
Flat-earthers would have you believe that Catholics like Emperor Frederic II, Columbus and Cassini, who pioneered the science of global earth were about THE DEVIL'S WORK , fooling all into believing the earth is not flat after all.
There is something very wrong with this recent FLAT-EARTHISM being used as something Biblical and Catholic. Their behaviour, denial and insistence has all the marks of devils at work, undermining both the Bible and Catholic faith as the religion of idiots, unable to determine what is real and what is not.
Topic: What to you see as the coming "great deception" (Read 8600 times)